The #1 Mistake People Make When Talking on Camera
Have you ever started recording a video and immediately felt stiff, awkward, tense, or robotic? You sounded great when you rehearsed. But somehow the camera’s red recording tally light is staring into your soul, exposing all your inadequacies for the world to laugh at.
You feel overly-aware of how you sound. Your face is suddenly shaped all weird. Every word sounds like uneducated gibberish. You don’t even feel like yourself anymore. I’ve been there, and I still get there.
And the reason why we do this is because we believe we have to look and sound a certain way to be professional or presentable. We’ll slow down unnaturally, over-enunciate, and basically try too hard to be polished and perfect.
I think it’s because many of us grew up with television, when video was a much more formal medium. But now that video is everywhere and its distribution controlled by no one, we don’t have to restrict ourselves to the creative guidelines of a risk-averse boardroom worried about the other networks’ share of America’s households’ attention.
Plus, people love seeing something new, like businesses showing behind-the-scenes videos, captured with an iPhone and posted as an Instagram Story.
So here’s how to fix it:
Talk how you would in a normal conversation. If you wouldn’t say it to a friend, don’t say it on video. It might help to recruit someone to sit next to the camera, and then talk to them while the camera is recording.
Use regular sentences. If you wouldn't say, “At the end of the day, what really matters is your brand’s ability to clearly and effectively communicate its value proposition,” and instead would say, “Be clear about what you do and why it matters,” then just say that. I don’t really know how else to elaborate on, “just be yourself.”
Picture one person, not an audience. Pretend that your video is just going to get one view (pretty much every single video gets more than one view), and then make the video for that one person.
The more natural you are, the more authentically you’ll show up. The goal isn’t to sound like a professional speaker — it’s just to be helpful.
